Hoping to keep Fairhaven's skyline and small town feel intact, some residents are petitioning selectmen, asking them not to sell the Rogers and Oxford school buildings at auction.

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By ARIEL WITTENBERG

southcoasttoday.com

By ARIEL WITTENBERG

Posted Jul. 21, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By ARIEL WITTENBERG

Posted Jul. 21, 2014 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

FAIRHAVEN — Hoping to keep Fairhaven's skyline and small town feel intact, some residents are petitioning selectmen, asking them not to sell the Rogers and Oxford school buildings at auction.

Members of the Rogers and Oxford Study Committee have been going door to door and holding clip boards outside of Stop & Shop with petitions to ask selectmen to use a "request for proposals" process for selling the school buildings instead.

They say allowing the town to vet the buildings' prospective owners through a proposal process will give officials more control than selling them off to the highest bidders.

Committee members are also worried that auctioning the schools could fast-track them for demolition.

"We want these buildings to be preserved," said committee secretary Susan Loo.

The most urgent cause is that of the Rogers School, she said. Selectmen want to move forward with selling that building first, because of questions about where the Oxford School's property lines are.

Loo said committee members prefer an RFP process for both buildings because they feel that gives the town more control. The town could consider not only the amount being paid for the building but also other factors, such as what a developer plans to do with it and the impact it will have on the neighborhood.

By contrast, an auction could only consider how much is being paid for the building. Upon purchasing the building, buyers could do whatever they want with it, including demolishing it, so long as they comply with zoning bylaws.

"We want something that is going to fit in that neighborhood, because it is a residential neighborhood," Loo said. "Plus, it's historic, it's part of the skyline. We don't want anything to change that."

Rogers School is located in an area that is zoned as residential for single-family homes. Without special permits, the building could be used as a school or as a single-family dwelling, Town Planner Bill Roth said, but there are exceptions.

For example, though town bylaws prohibit multi-family dwellings in the neighborhood, the state makes an exception for low-income housing. There are also special permits a developer could obtain to turn the building into a convalescence home.

Nothing in the bylaws prevents a buyer from demolishing the building or changing its iconic red brick facade.

That's exactly what committee chair Nils Isaksen said they want to avoid.

"After auction they can do anything they want, without any care for what we want," he said. "We would have no control of the property."

The committee will continue collecting signatures over the weekend and present the petition to selectmen at the board's Tuesday night meeting.

Selectmen Chairman Bob Espindola said that apart from the petition, the board has received numerous letters from neighbors concerned about what will happen to the Rogers School building.

He said he is sympathetic to their concerns, but is reserving judgment until Tuesday's meeting.

"I definitely see the benefit of a proposal process," he said. "I just want to make sure we do what's in the best interest of the town."